THE SITUATION 


AN ADDRESS DELIVERED 


AT THE ANNUAL MEETING OF 




Leag 



BY 

HON. GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. 



NEW YORK: 

PUBLISHED FOR THE '» 

NATIONAL CIVIL-SERVICE REFORM LEA' 


1886. 
















Publications of the National League. 

Proceedings at the Annual Meeting of the National Civil-Service 


Reform League, 1882, with address by George William Curtis 


Per copy, 10 cts. 

The same for 1883. 

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• • • • 

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The same for 1884. 

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Per 100, 

• 

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The same for 1885. 

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• 

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The same for 1886. 

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The Year’s Work in Civil Service Reform. (Address of 1884 .) By 
George William Curtis. Per copy, 3 cts. Per 100 , . $2 50 

Civil-Service Reform under the present National Administration. 


(Address of 1885.) By George William Curtis. Per copy, 3 cts. 
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The Situation. (Address of 1886.) By George William Curtis. Per 
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Address to the Voters of the United States. By George William 
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The Selection of Laborers. By James M. Bugbee of the Mass. C. 
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Constitution of the National Civil-Service Reform League. 

Also a few copies of some early publications. 

PUBLICATIONS OF THE NEW YORK ASSOCIATION. 

* 1 

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III. The Spoils System and Civil-Service Reform in the Custom- 

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THE SITUATION 


AN ADDRESS DELIVERED 


AT THE ANNUAL MEETING OF 


The National Civil-Service Reform League, 


AUGUST 4 , rSS6, 


HON. GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. 

// 


NEW YORK: 

PUBLISHED FOR THE 

NATIONAL CIVIL-SERVICE REFORM LEAGUE, 

1886. 




















c.'V ' 3 

* 


P. 

Publ. 



' i 


PRESS OF 


WILLIAM S. GOTTSRERGER 

II MURRAY STREET, N. Y. 


THE SITUATION. 


The earliest historic legend of the State in which we are 
assembled is that of the Indian greeting to Roger Williams. As 
he coasted along the western shore of the Seekonk river at the 
head of the bay, he heard suddenly a greeting in his native 
tongue. “What cheer? Netop, what cheer?” It was the 
voice of friendly Indians welcoming him to the State that he 
founded, and which, remembering his courage and his faith, has 
wisely chosen for its emblem the anchor, and for its legend, the 
words, “ in God we hope.” If now mindful of the cause which 
brings us to the shores of Xarragansett bay, we should ask each 
other of Civil-Service Reform, what cheer brothers, what cheer ? 
I. for one, should answer promptly, better and better cheer; 
such cheer, indeed, as no association like ours ever enjoyed at its 
sixth annual meeting; never were the skies so bright, never was 
the future so fair. 

I am fully aware of the other view which is vociferously 
urged. I read every day in some newspaper that Civil-Service 
Reform is now at last finally dead. But I have heard it so often 
and have been so constantly bidden to the obsequies, that I am 
very skeptical of its actual decease. It is now twenty years since 
that worthy son of Rhode Island. Thomas Allen Jenckes, opened 



4 


in Congress the great debate for reform, and at least half a dozen 
times since that happy day I have heard that reform was as dead 
as the alien and sedition laws of the United States bank. When 
Congress refused the appropriation to President Grant I was 
sympathetically assured that the pretty bubble had burst. When 
President Hayes felt that his views were those of a small minority, 
but an exceedingly awkward squad for the party managers, and 
his action accordingly was very cautious, it was announced again 
that the humbug was exploded. When the House of Representa¬ 
tives in 1882 for half an hour merrily kicked and cuffed reform 
and cut down the appropriation which President Arthur had 
asked, it was evident to many delighted observers that Sunday- 
school politics were “ played out.” When a large body of Civil 
Service Reformers supported Mr. Cleveland for the presidency, 
it was angrily alleged that reform was betrayed and murdered in 
the house of its false friends. When inexplicable appointments, 
and arbitrary removals, and an apparent want of consistent 
adherence to principle have been pointed out under the present 
administration, the situation has been described as a wild 
saturnalia of spoils around the corpse of reform. Indeed one 
thing of which in many willing minds there has been no doubt 
ever since the reform was born, is that reform is dead.’ If it were 
so, it would certainly prove that death loves a shining mark, and 
he is supposed to be a sure marksman. But this time he has 
missed. 

Public opinion upon this subject was never so aroused, so 
enlightened, and so determined. The wholesome purpose and 
sound reason of reform were never so generally and so clearly 
perceived, and it was never so plainly a pressing public question. 


5 


There was never such a rattling of amazement and consternation 
among the dry bones of Bourbon party politics; never such a 
hysterical protestation upon the part of peddlers of patronage 
that the deluge would not be much of a shower after all; never 
such shuddering certainty in the minds of political money 
changers, that the'people will presently scourge them with wrath 
out of the temple of liberty. Political assessments, the blackmail 
imposed by party freebooters upon the employes of the people, 
have been in great part suppressed, and have been permanently 
stigmatized as despicable. Arbitrary removals which were the 
accepted and unquestioned practice of the public service, have not 
ceased, indeed, but they are now instantly challenged and 
exposed, and there is a distinct public sense of wrong in the act 
and a disposition to deal rigorously with any administration which 
is guilty of the offence. The recent debates in Congress upon 
the subject of reform, the eloquent silence of many leaders, no 
less than the hostile speech of others; the eagerness on one side 
to prove falsity to reform against the other, and the recrimination 
that the pot when in power had been as black as it now 
alleged the administration kettle to be; the acrimony, the sullen¬ 
ness, the avoidance of the vote on one side; the banter, the 
accusation, and the sarcasm on the other, all showed in that 
assembly, which talks always with its ear turned toward the 
people, a universal consciousness that it was dealing with a ques¬ 
tion in which the country was profoundly interested, and which 
would exert a powerful influence upon the election. 

It was quite right. The pricked bubble, the exploded hum- 
oug, the played out Sunday school game, the aristocratic device, 
the monarchical plot, the trick to retain Republicans in office, the 


6 


un-American reform, slain and thrice slain, and dead as the Bank 
or the Embargo, will be for the first time a leading question in 
the Congressional elections of this year. On one side support ot 
the administration will mean support of reform; on the other, 
opposition to the administration will mean denunciation of its 
infidelity to reform. The democratic candidate this year need 
not protest the soundness of his views upon State sovereignty and 
a revision of the tariff, nor solemnly affirm his Jeffersonian 
principles, but he must announce his approval or disapproval of 
the President’s course and so define distinctly his position upon 
reform. The Republican need not dilate upon protection and a 
gold standard, a free ballot and a fair count; but while he is 
faithful to Republican traditions he must declare unequivocally 
for appointments by proved merit, and in an open and free com¬ 
petition. Let the Democratic candidate who holds with Senator 
Vance that reform is unconstitutional and un-Democratic, and 
consequently that the President betrays his trust in tolerating 
Republicans in the Civil Service, say so frankly and appeal for 
judgment. Let the Republican candidate who holds with Senator 
Ingalls that the Civil Service is spoils, that the spoils belong to 
the victors, and that Republicans ought to scorn to serve the 
country under a Democratic administration, say with equal frank¬ 
ness that the President betrays his party trust if he does not turn 
out Republicans. If the nominating conventions should omit to 
secure such an expression from candidates for Congress the Na¬ 
tional Reform League will undertake to supply the omission. 
At last, said Wendell Phillips in i860, after thirty years of anti¬ 
slavery agitation,—at last the slave has elected a President of the 
United States. In 1882 at the annual meeting of this League 


7 


it resolved that for the first time candidates for Congress should 
be asked to express their views upon reform; and now after a 
short but vigorous agitation of four years it is evident that under 
the necessary conditions of the election of this autumn Civil-Ser¬ 
vice reform will be a distinct issue in the election of the Congress 
of the United States. 

It is by such facts and such a situation that the progress of 
reform is to be estimated. Inconsistencies and failures in the 
practical enforcement of the principle may be deplored, but the 
advance of reform itself is now beyond the control of any ad¬ 
ministration. This year or another year may be a bad year for 
fruit, but none the less the fruit trees are rooted fast in a kindly 
soil, and abundant and noble fruit is sure. The important ques¬ 
tion is not whether this or that executive officer respects the law, 
but whether the public mind is interested and aroused. The 
prosperity of reform lies in the condition of public opinion. 
Every good reform is a public conviction before it is a law, and 
the first demonstration of active and serious opposition is the 
unfailing sign that, in the language of religious revivals, the public 
mind is under conviction. In my first address before the League, 
four years ago, I said that the battle with the spoils system had 
begun in earnest. In its nature it must be an obstinate and 
strenuous contest. We are in the midst of it now. The very 
vigor of the fight shows the strength both of the reform sentiment 
and of the spoils tradition. We have never anticipated, I am 
sure, an undisputed victory. We have never supposed that we 
should march as on parade, with the bands playing gaily, straight 
across the field of battle. We know too well the power of the 
evil entrenched in tradition and prejudice and ignorance and fierce 


8 


party spirit to expect that the acts of any officer or the course of 
any administration which was not especially elected upon the 
reform issue and for the purpose of reform, however friendly to 
reform they might be, would be perfectly consistent and reasonable 
and free from reproach. In estimating the situation we do not 
accept on the one hand without qualification praise of its own 
administration from a party which, as a party, has shown little 
sympathy with the distinctive policy of the executive, nor on the 
other hand can we heed denunciation of the reform course of the 
administration proceeding from the opposition party, stimulated 
by party spirit for a party purpose, and not intended to promote 
reform. 

This League is the only organized and authentic national 
representative of the reform sentiment. I challenge any man to 
show that it has in any degree or at any time betrayed the trust 
voluntarily' assumed by it, with the approval of the locally 
organized friends of reform, of honestly and adequately repre¬ 
senting that sentiment, and its criticisms and demands upon 
political parties and public men. The League has pandered to 
no personal ambition, to no party purpose. It has been no man’s 
instrument nor has it been the organ of any faction. Upon the 
late party change of administration, on behalf of the friends of 
reform and in the public interest the League addressed the newly- 
elected President earnestly commending to him the interests of 
reform, and in a forcible, unequivocal and patriotic strain he 
responded, expressing the sympathy with the movement which he 
had practically proved as - Governor of New York, pledging 
himself to the enforcement of the reform law in good faith, and 
to an observance of its spirit in selections for appointment beyond 


9 


its range. A year and five months of his administration have now 
passed, and the time has arrived when a general survey of its 
action npon this subject and of the condition of reform under his 
administration is practicable and desirable. The Executive Com¬ 
mittee of the League, therefore, recently appointed a Committee 
of which I have the honor to be Chairman, charged with the duty 
of reporting, first, concerning the enforcement and operation of 
the National Civil-Service law : second, concerning the principles 
and methods followed by the administration in making appoint¬ 
ments, removals, and suspensions: and third, concerning the pro¬ 
gress of the reformed system in state and municipal governments. 
The report of the committee will naturally embrace some of the 
topics to which I should otherwise allude in this address. But I 
shall leave to that report of eminent representatives of the cause 
from various parts of the country to state authoritatively the judg- 

i 

ment of the League upon the general course of the administration 
as affecting Civil-Service Reform. 

Apart from the details of the enforcement of the law and of 
executive action in regard to appointments and removals, there 
are three chief points of interest in the reform history of the year. 
First, the effort in Congress to annul the national law; second, 
the effort to destroy the efficiency of the State law in Massachus¬ 
etts : and third, the introduction of the reform bill of Mr. 
Edmunds. The direct assault to repeal the national law failed in 
both houses of Congress. But the efforts at direct repeal were 
only rockets thrown up from a sinking ship. They served merely 
to cast a momentary light upon despair. The serious attack was 
of another kind. It was a proposition to make the payment of 
the salary of the Civil-Service Commissioners contingent upon a 


10 


change of rules by the President which would abolish competition 
and facilitate partisan appointment. It was an ingenious scheme 
to rebuke the President, to discredit the Civil-Service Commission, 
and to nullify the reform law. The fact that it was an attack by 
indirection, sure if it did not prosper to be disposed of by a point 
of order and without a record of the vote, showed that the leaders 
doubted its success. But they were willing to try the assault in 
order to prove their own hostility to the President and to show 
to their constituents that they were guiltless of reform and would 
gladly distribute spoils if only they could. In this last purpose 
the effect succeeded, but not in rebuking the President nor in 
discrediting the Commission. 

It is unfortunate that the cunning method of the attack pre¬ 
vented a vote. But even had there been a unanimous adverse 
vote it would have shown not that the House is an assembly of 
reformers, but only that representatives are aware of the quality 
and extent of the reform sentiment in the country. How little 
the undoubted desire of a great and intelligent public sentiment 
practically and permanently to establish the reformed system 
really animates Congress is shown by the little tricks that the 
House tolerated in the appropriation bill to evade the reform law. 
On the 17th of June, on the motion of Mr. Randall, the House 
of Representatives reduced the number of clerks within the 
classified service in the Patent Office by thirty, and increased the 
number of skilled laborers at $840 a year from sixty-two to 
ninety-two. The object was evident. Examinations are not 
held for clerkships of less than an annual value of $900. The 
so-called skilled laborers of the Patent Office, though employed 
chiefly on clerical work, have not been treated as within the 


classified service, although probably they fall within it. The 
amendment was passed by the House without a division, and 
was accepted by the Senate. Congress thus snatched a few small 
places out of the classified service and threw them upon the heap 
of spoils. The plea is that a few thousands of dollars are saved. 
The result is that the public service loses trained capacity, the law 
is evaded, the public offices are demoralized, and Congress is 
disgraced by a petty trick. 

0 

Such a trick would be impossible were there a sincere desire 
in Congress to secure reform. But there was no positive reform 
legislation during the session, and nothing in the action of either 
House showed any serious interest in the subject. Senator 
Hampton’s bill making it a misdemeanor for a Senator or Repre¬ 
sentative to recommend or solicit appointments; Mr. Willis’ to 
repeal the four years’ law; Mr. Long’s to repeal the tenure of 
office act; Mr. Cutcheon’s for a bureau of Civil-Service appoint¬ 
ments ; Mr. Bayne’s for the election of certain officers by the 
people ; Mr. Cox’s for an equitable classification and compensa¬ 
tion of certain officers, were the other more prominent proposi¬ 
tions affecting the Civil Service which were introduced. Some 
sleep in committee, some were reported, none have become laws. 
Whatever may be the assertion of party managers, nothing shows 
so conclusively that reform is in no proper sense the policy of 
either of the great parties as the course of Congress. No leader 
in either House is an aggressive Civil-Service Reformer. No 
Senator or Representative has proposed to extend the scope of 
the reform law. Congress, indeed, is plainly conscious of the 
public interest, and of the rapidly increasing pressure of the 
question. But it is both angry and bewildered. The shepherds 


12 


are in the fog and hate to try the upward path, and the sheep can 
only bleat plaintively for the lost pastures of patronage. 

But while the negative conduct of Congress signally illus¬ 
trates the indifference of party politicians, the action of one of 
the chief bureaus of administration in the Treasury Department 
happily illustrates the results of sincere, intelligent, and courage¬ 
ous fidelity to reform. The bureau of printing and engraving 
controls more patronage of places not included in the classified 
service than all the other Treasury bureaus combined. It has 
been notorious as the refuge of parasites of the most unscrupulous 
spoilsmen, and an investigating committee of experts in the 
Treasury of the same party with the chief part of the force 
employed in the bureau, reported a few years ago that the vicious 
circle of lavish appropriation and of appointment by political 
influence had led to the employment of a force which in some 
divisions was twice and in others three times as large as was 
necessary, and that more than half the force in the bureau might 
be dispensed with. Soon after his inauguration President 
Cleveland appointed the chairman of this committee to be chief 
of the bureau. During the first thirteen months of his control, 
ending on the first of July, there have been but seven permanent 
original appointments, all of which were to places that it was 
absolutely necessary to fill. *Three persons also have been 
appointed in the place of relatives who had broken down in the 
service, and fifteen of the most deserving of the employes who had 
been discharged in order to reduce the force have been recalled to 
the service as they were needed. No person has been discharged 
for political reasons, or to make place for another. Since the first 
of March, 1885, the force of the bureau has been reduced by three 


*3 


hundred persons. Of the appropriations made for its support for 
the fiscal year 1885 $73,000 were returned to the Treasury 
unused, and there will be an estimated saving of at least 
$ I 75> 000 m the appropriation for 1886, making an aggregate 
saving of about $250,000 in this single branch of the Depart¬ 
ment under this administration, and all that has been done has 
received the most cordial support of Mr. Manning, the Secretary 
of the Treasury. This'is Civil-Service Reform. This bureau 
is what every bureau in the public service might become with 
incalculable advantage to the country, to political morality, and 
to the true function of party in a republic, which is not to dis¬ 
tribute patronage but to determine policy. But such a beneficient 
and remarkable administration of an office is impossible except 
upon the condition that happily exists in this bureau. There 
must be at the head of the office the same thorough belief in 
reform, the same ability and intelligence and courage to enforce it 
which distinguish the head of the Bureau of Printing and 
Engraving, one of the earliest and most efficient friends of 
reform in the country, Mr. Edward O. Graves. ' 

I can only mention the second point, the persistent and 
significant effort of the Massachusetts Legislature, by an over¬ 
whelming majority, practically to repeal the reform law of that 
State — an effort which was eloquently and indignantly opposed 
by every veteran who took part in the debate, except the author 
of the bill, and which was happily baffled by the forcible and 
conclusive veto of Governor Robinson. The frank and earnest 
opposition of the veterans proved that it is a gross dishonor to 
the men who offered their lives in defense of a Union founded 
upon equal rights and equal laws to assert that not content with 


the consciousness of duty well done, and with the national 
gratitude manifested in pensions, in homes and hospitals, and 
in friendly preference wherever preference is justifiable, they 
demand the repeal of equal laws carefully designed to promote 
the general welfare and universally acknowledged to be effective 
to that end. It was the veterans in the Massachusetts Legisla¬ 
ture who opposed the repeal of the reform law, not the politicians 
who pressed it, who truly represented the spirit which inspired 
the soldier and sailor of the Union from Fort Sumter to 
Appomattox, from Dupont and Ward to Farragut and Porter. 

The third chief incident in the annals of reform for the year 
is the bill recently introduced in the Senate by Senator Edmunds. 
It is a bill of great importance, into the general discussion of 
which I cannot now enter. But two of its provisions demand 
our most careful attention, for while this League seeks the repeal 
of the four years’ law, the Edmunds bill proposes to re-enact it; 
and while the League would leave the power of removal to the 
appointing officer and destroy the motives for its unjust exercise, 
the Edmunds bill would confer that power upon the United States 
Judges. The passage of this bill would confirm and perpetuate 
one of the most mischievous abuses in the government. Miss 
Salmon, in her History of the Appointing Power of the President, 
is not extravagant in saying of the four years’ law, “ Never in the 
whole history of the legislation of a hundred years affecting the 
appointing power has so disastrous a measure been enacted.” It 
practically places the whole body of important subordinate 
offices, upon which depends the vast ramification of minor 
employments, at the disposal of the President during his term. 
It enables him to change the entire force of the Civil Service 


r 5 


without the odium of arbitrary removal. It was, indeed, the 
four years’ law that introduced the practice of such removals and 
began the sophistication and corruption of public sentiment 
which are revealed in the familiar assertion that a clean partisan 
sweep of the public service is the intentional and logical result 
of an election. The truth is otherwise. Mr. Randall, the 
biographer of Jefferson and as strong an anti-Federalist, admits 
that even after Jefferson’s election minor offices were understood 
to be held upon the constitutional tenure of good conduct, and 
Mr. Calhoun, in 1835, states that arbitrary removals were of 
recent date, that is since 1820 when the four years’ law was 
passed. Mr. Benton said truly that the expiration of the term 
was regarded as the creation of a vacancy to be filled by a new 
appointment, and in 1826, six years after the passage of the law, 
the select committee of the Senate recommended its repeal 
because the law operated against its own intent and served to 
turn out faithful officers instead of retaining them. 



The forecast of Jefferson and Madison in regard to the 
mischievous results of the four years’ law have been amply 
verified by experience. It has been one of the great bulwarks of 
the spoils system and has been vigorously defended by every party 
buccaneer. Even when there has been no party change of 
administration the vacation of the offices by the expiration of the 
term has opened the opportunity for gratifying factional feeling. 
In 1882 I pointed out that of 825 officers whose terms had 
expired in nine months of the late administration nearly half had 
been dropped from the serviee. If 825 offices, nearly one-quar¬ 
ter of the 3,400 or 3,500 subject to executive nomination, and 
filled by members of his own party, had not been vacated by law 


i6 


within the space of nine months is it probable that the President 
would have vacated them within that time either by his own act 
or by an appeal to a Judge ? Is it conceivable that of those 825 
officers nearly one-half were unfit for their positions ? Is it 
doubtful that the most desperate and unscrupulous of partisans 
in every political contest are officers who know that the chance 
of their own support and that of their families depends upon the 
result of an election. Manly independence and self-respect must 
be necessarily destroyed and the public service consequently 
demoralized by the knowledge that honesty and ability and 
experience and industry and efficiency will be of no avail to 
retain men in their employments if a party administration or the 
factional control of their own party should change at the end of 
four years. A limited term for the minor appointive offices is a 
direct incitement to intrigue and fraud and falsehood. It is a 
folly unknown in private business, and it deprives public employ¬ 
ment of that incentive to diligence and efficiency, and destroys 
that mainspring of honorable self respect, the peaceful conscious¬ 
ness that success depends upon merit and not on favor, and that 
fidelity and competency are the guarantee of continued employ¬ 
ment and promotion. After the discussions of recent years the 
deliberate re-enactment by Congress of the four years’ law would 
plainly contemplate and sanction a clean sweep of the service 
with every party change of administration as fast as official terms 
should expire. The President would be invited by the law itself 
to reward his own partisans as every day placed offices at his 
disposal. The Civil Service would become, with the express 
approval of Congress, a mere treasury of party spoils. 

The Edmunds bill is in fact a bill to enact and legitimate all 


T 7 


the evils of a clean sweep. Would they be obviated by the 
extraordinary provision of judicial suspension and removal, which 
is another proposition of the bill ? I think not. This provision 
would at most prevent only the arbitrary dismissal of incumbents 
during their terms. But it would not affect the essential evil of a 
four years’ law, which is automatic removal, removal by the 
expiry of the term. If dismissal without reason during a brief 
term is wrong, dismissal without reason at the end of such a term 
cannot be justified upon any sound business principle. Reform, 
as we understand it, seeks to take the whole non-political public 
service out of politics. But the Edmunds bill thrusts it into 
politics. There is nothing in the provision for judicial suspension 
or removal during the term which would restrain the mischief in 
the least degree. The service would be necessarily partisan, and 
a partisan service would be what it has always been, the most 
despotic, unscrupulous, and debasing of party machines. It is 
true that the present reform law leaves the executive choice 
beyond the classified service entirely untrammelled. But the 
spirit of the law forbids the abuse both of the power of removal 
and of appointment throughout the unclassified service, while its 
warmest friends seek to strengthen the reform of which it is an 
active agent by the repeal of the four years’ law. In the situation 
which the Edmunds bill would invite the only restraint upon the 
complete prostitution of patronage to party would be the chance 
of a reform President. But this would be but a momentary 
relief, and the chance of a reform President would certainly not 
be increased by the unrestricted power of filling the whole public 
service with active personal partisans. When Madame de Stael 
said to the Emperor Alexander that a despotism may be bene- 


18 


ficient, he answered Yes, Madame, but it would be only a happy 
accident. The reform of the Civil Service must not be left to a 
happy accident. 

But while the method of removal which the bill provides 
would not remedy the immense evil which the bill promotes, what 
would be the effect upon the discipline and efficiency of the 
service itself? The bill provides for removal for cause to be 
determined by judicial authority. But such a law would logically 
and inevitably affect the whole service. If the President could 
remove a postmaster only for cause satisfactory to a court of law, 
it would be manifestly unjust to permit the postmaster to remove 
a clerk without cause determined with similar care. The result 
would be intolerable. The right of counsel and the forms of law 
would be invoked, the whole legal machinery of mandamuses, 
injunctions, certioraris, and the rules of evidence would be put in 
play to displace a slovenly postmaster, or on the other hand to 
keep an incompetent clerk at his desk or a sleepy watchman on 
his beat. Cause for the removal of a small collector, or a letter 
carrier in the post office, or an accountant in the Custom House 
would be presented with all the pomp of impeachment, and 
established like a high crime and misdemeanor. The discipline 
of the service upon which its efficiency depends would be ruined. 
If appointing officers, from the President to the head of a bureau, 
were obliged to prove negligence, or insolence, or want of quick¬ 
ness, or any of the myriad forms of inefficiency in a subordinate 
as he would prove a charge of theft or arson, the officer’s good 
nature would recoil, and there would be no removals except for 
offenses of which the penal law takes cognizance. The superior 
officers would endure much and long rather than bring a suit 


19 


against a subordinate for unpunctuality or laziness; official 
discipline would disappear, and the efficiency of the service would 
be fatally impaired. Moreover, when removal should depend 
upon the judgment of a court, removal would be always and 
justly regarded as a stigma upon character. Removal for cause, 
therefore, if the cause were to be decided by any authority but 
that of the superior officer, instead of improving would swiftly 
and enormously enhance the cost by ruining the efficiency of 
the public service, by destroying subordination and making every 
lazy and worthless officer or clerk twice as careless and incom¬ 
petent as before. 

I do not indeed forget the wanton outrages of removal in the 
public service, nor the unhappiness and despair which they pro¬ 
duce. Undoubtedly the larger part of the personal suffering and 
injustice arising from the vicious system of treating the public 
service as party spoils is due to arbitrary partisan removal. This 
wrong is not disposed of by saying flippantly that the persons 
removed have had their share and ought to give way for others. 
This is merely pleading the absurdity known as rotation in office, 
which as a principle or a practice in the minor service means 
nothing whatever. It is a phrase implying an equal sharing of 
public places among the people. But there is no such thing as 
sharing the public places because there are not enough for all. If 
everybody is to be paid out of the public treasury for doing his 
political duty it is obviously absurd to permit anybody to be paid 
for four successive years. That would be a wicked monopoly. 
Even with a term of four months we should not all get a chance 
at the treasury, and the four years cormorants would evidently 
take the bread out of the mouths of the rest of us. If Tim is 


20 


entitled to a place because he has worked for the party so is Tom. 
And upon this principle of rotation if there are not places for 
both of them, all the Tims who are appointed ought to divide 
their wages with all the Toms for whom there are no places. 
When Silas Wright called rotation in office a cardinal Republican 
principle let us hope that he meant rotation in offices for which 
the constitution provides the opportunity of rotation, and not in 
the vast multitude of subordinate employments in which equal 
rotation is absolutely impossible, and in which if it were possible 
it would be absurd. 

The doctrine of rotation in office is justified by its advocates 
upon two grounds : first, that there should be no vested right in 
office; and second, that in public offices there is always a 
tendency to mere routine, which operates as a kind of dry rot of 
official vigor and efficiency. But both pleas vanish in a system 
where the power of removal is unrestricted. No man holds a 
vested right in public office who holds as in private business at 
the will of a superior, and the remedy for inefficiency lies, as in 
all other well-conducted business, on the responsible head of the 
office. When it is once determined that public business shall be 
transacted like private business the question of removal will need 
no such grotesque solution as that of the Edmunds bill. The 
question of removing a private book-keeper or engineer is not 
referred to a court of law, and when a merchant’s clerk is 
inefficient or unsatisfactory and is consequently dismissed he does 
not argue before a United States Court his right to hold his place 
for three years or for three days longer. In re-enacting the four 
years’ term, thereby sanctioning the abuses known as a clean 
sweep and partisan rotation in office, and in separating the 


21 


executive power of removal from the executive power of appoint¬ 
ment, the bill of Mr. Edmunds violates what we believe to be 
cardinal conditions of thorough reform in the Civil Service. 

There is one other plea for rotation in office which is the 
final defence of the system that makes spoils of the public service. 
It is asserted that our Government is a government of party, and 
that thorough party organization and effective party diligence 
would be impossible without the reward of place. It is contended 
that the spur of party ambition in great party leaders, in Pitt or 
Fox, in Clay or Calhoun, in Gladstone or Disraeli, is the desire 
of reaching great place to direct an imperial policy. If Clay 
may properly aspire to be President and claim the Presidency as 
a reward of illustrious party service, why should the same desire 
and the same claim in a small and humble degree be denied to 
the follower of Clay who cannot make a speech, but who can 
bring out the voters ? This is a plausible plea, but even when 
sincere it totally misconceives the facts. In a free country 
undoubtedly political ambition is the ambition to govern, and 
when great questions arise and the country divides upon great 
policies of government those who by resistless argument and 
burning appeal successfully mould public opinion are naturally 
placed where they can make that conviction law and enforce it in 
administration. This is the legitimate result of the successful 
appeal of political leaders to the country. But neither Clay nor 
Van Buren nor any other American citizen could claim the 
Presidency on any ground whatever, and to argue that a man 
who brings out the voters and “ treats the boys ” and “ runs the 
machine ” should be set to appraising muslins, or weighing spices, 
or keeping books in a public office upon the same principle that a 


22 


party leader is called to organize the measures of the policy which 
he has proposed and which the country has approved, is to insult 
the public common sense. 

The legitimate and healthy contest of parties in a republic 
is not to be deprecated. It is the controversy of principles, the 
argument of policies, the great contention to which the political 
genius of the English-speaking race especially inclines. But 
patronage destroys legitimate party action, and the reckless party 
spirit, against which Washington bequeated us his last and most 
solemn warning, constantly strives to substitute personal and 
private ends for public purposes, and to make party contest a 
struggle for the public money in the emoluments of petty place 
instead of a great appeal to the country for a public policy. 
Thus the spoils system instead of promoting the just objects of 
party degrades and demoralizes party itself, and destroys its true 
function. To say that the distribution of non-political places as 
rewards among a few parasites of politicians whom the parasites 
hold in higher place, is essential to party, is false because it 
destroys the legitimate reason of party. But to plead that it is 
indispensable to general and active interest in politics is to argue 
against facts and experience as well as against reason. 

The first great party change of administration in our own 
history followed the election of Jefferson. In less than ten years 
this party had prevailed over the party of Washington and Jay 
and Hamilton, and was thoroughly organized, enthusiastic, and 
triumphant. But it had advanced to national supremacy, not 
only without the control of the patronage, but without the hope 
of it. Not only had it no such excuse for assessing or such 
means of disciplining its members, but there was no promise or 


23 


general expectation of obtaining place by a clean sweep of 
Federal office-holders. “ Some removals,” said Jefferson, “ I 
know must be made. They must be as few as possible, done 
gradually, and bottomed on some malversation or inherent dis¬ 
qualification. Good men to whom there is no objection but a 
difference of political opinion, practised on only so far as the right 
of a private citizen will justify, are not proper subjects of removal.” 
These were Jeffersonian principles. They are absolutely and 
directly opposed to the Jacksonian principle, to the victors belong 
the spoils of the enemy. These are the principles of Washington 
as well as Jefferson; the principles of true Democracy not in the 
party sense but in that sense in which every true American is a 
Democrat. Reform in the first party change of administration 
did not mean turning out honest and efficient postmasters, and 
night watchmen and messengers as rascals. It meant strict con¬ 
struction of the Constitution, restriction of national powers, the 
fostering of State sovereignty, reduction of taxes, and economy 
and simplicity in government. It did not mean a clean sweep 
of minor places, for there were fewer places upon the national 
register when Jefferson was inaugurated than there are now upon 
that of the New York Custom House alone. That single fact 
proves the absurd untruth of the assertion that the prospect of 
spoils is the spring of party activity. 

The election which just aroused and shaken the British 
Empire from sea to sea, and which the London Times said was to 
determine the most momentous issue ever decided by a 
general election in England, is a signal illustration of the 
legitimate contest of party. It was a tremendous controversy 
upon a great national question. Every intelligent Englishman, 


24 


and Scotchman, and Irishman was as earnestly interested 
in that election as every patriotic American was absorbed in 
the great contentions that preceded and accompanied our 
war for the Union. The whole world watched the conflict 
and anticipated with eagerness the result. Does any American 
suppose that it was a struggle for the post offices, and that it 
would have been a very languid election except for the prospect 
of small clerkships, messengerships, and a clean sweep ? Mr. 
Gladstone answered him long ago, “ We limit to a few scores of 
persons the removals and appointments on these occasions,” and 
again, “ We have abandoned that potver (of filling the minor 
places), we have thrown every one of them open to competition;” 
and he adds : “ And in order that the public service might be, 
indeed, the public service; in order that we might not have 
among the civil officers of the State that which we complained of 
in the army, namely, that the service was not the property of the 
nation but of the officers, we have now been enabled to remove 
the barriers of nomination, patronage, jobbing, favoritism in 
whatever form; and every man belonging to the people of 
England, if he so please to fit his children for the position of com¬ 
peting for places in the public service, may do it entirely 
irrespective of the question what is his condition in life, or the 
amount of means with which he may happen to be or not to be 
blessed.” 

These words describe the great purpose of this League, a 
purpose which with every day is more widely approved by the 
country, and is therefore constantly nearer accomplishment. 
There is nothing so essentially Republican, nothing so distinct¬ 
ively Democratic as Civil-Service Reform. The measures which 


2 5 


the practical progress of reform now requires are the rapid and 
steady extension of the classified service into every branch of the 
administration to which its principles properly apply ; the repeal 
of the four years’ law and the summary removal of officers who 
evade or defy the letter or the spirit of the reform law, or inter¬ 
fere in nominations and elections. The unmistakable evidence of 
determined purpose in the superior officer is felt by every cabin 
boy on the ship, every private in the ranks, and it is the 
most effective moral tonic, whether in an actual battle or in 
the peaceful controversies of reform. Every man, whether in 
public place or in private life, who believes that a thorough 
correction of the dangerous abuses of patronage is indispensable, 
and who holds that a system of the public service which 
was wise and practicable under President Washington is 
practicable and wise under President Cleveland or any other 
President, but who comprehends also the necessary bitterness and 
tenacity of the contest in which we are engaged, may well 
ponder the remark of the Yankee to his antagonist, “ Wal, 1 
\spose you’re pretty ugly, but I cal’late I’m a darned site uglier 
If there is any cabin boy on our ship, or any private in our 
ranks, who ‘is not full of that spirit and who does not already 
hear the bugles of victory in his heart, I do not know where to 
look for him. 
















































































LSl 
























Daniel Webster and the Spoils System. An extract from Senator 
Bayard’s oration at Dartmouth College, June, 1882. Per copy, 3 cts. 
Per 100, . . . . . . . $1 50 

The “Pendleton Bill.” Bill to Regulate and Improve the Civil Service 
of the United States, as approved. Per copy, 3 cts. Per 100, $1 50 

The Civil Service of Cities, Police and Fire Departments. A 

Report to the C.-S. R. A. of N. Y. made by request of the State Civil- 
Service Commission. Per copy, - - - - 5 cts. 

What has been done in New York and may be done elsewhere. 

Per copy, 1 ct. Per 100, .... 30 c t St 

The Reform of the Civil Service. Per copy, 1 ct. Per kx>, 30 cts. 
What is the Civil Service? (Card for distribution). 

Annual Report of the C.-S. R. A. of N. Y., May, 1883. Per copy, 3 cts. 
The same for 1884 Per copy, - - - - 3 cts. 

The same for 1885. Per copy, - 3 cts. 

The same for 1886. Per copy, 3 cts. 

Some Questions for Voters to Consider. (Circular for distribution.) 
Constitution and By-Laws of New York Association. 

Also a few copies of some early publications. 

MISCELLANEOUS. 

• / 

Civil Service in Great Britain, By Dorman B. Eaton. Per copy. 2 ? .s. 

The Competitive Test. By Edward M. Shepard. Per copy, 5 cts. 

The Meaning of Civil-Service Reform. By Edward O. Graves, 
Per copy, - - - - - - -3 cts. 

Report of the U. S. Civil-Service Commission, 1884. 

The same for 1885. 

The Same for 1886. 

Report of the N. Y. Civil-Service Commission, 1884. 

The same for 1885. 

The same for 1886. 

Also a few other miscellaneous publications. 

Orders for the publications will be filled by William Potts, Secretary, 
35 Liberty St., New York. 





PRESIDENT. 

GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. 

SECRETARY. 

WILLIAM POTTS. 

TREASURER. 

IRA BURSLEY. 


, 


ii i ill mini 

0 028 070 944 


X 


EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE. 


WM. A. AIKEN, 

CHARLES J. BONAPARTE, 
SILAS W. BURT, 

JOHN JAY, 

A. R. MACDONOUGH, 

W. W. MONTGOMERY, 
SHERMAN S. ROGERS, 


WILLIAM CARY SANGER, 
CARL SCHURZ, 

EDWARD M. SHEPARD, 
MOORFIELD STOREY, 
EVERETT P. WHEELER, 
FREDERIC W. WHITRIDGE, 
MORRILL WYMAN, JR. - 



The formation of local Associations in every locality 
where a nucleus can be found is much to be desired, and 
the Secretary of the League will be glad to assist any move¬ 
ment in that direction, Each Association, when formed, 
should establish an official connection with the National 
igue. The details of the organization having been 
furnished to the Executive Committee through the Secre¬ 
tary that Committee is authorized to admit the association 
to membership in the League, whereupon it is entitled to 
elect a member of the General Committee and a represen¬ 
tative Vice-President. The Secretary should thereafter be 
kept informed of the progress of the work, and of changes 
of officers as they may occur. 

Address 

WILLIAM POTTS, 

Secretary, 

'NO. 35 LIBERTY STREET, NEW YORK. 












